TRENTON — Gov. Chris Christie and the Democrats who control the Legislature continued to publicly posture over the governor’s property tax reform agenda Friday, and private negotiations that lasted into the night failed to resolve the standoff. Talks between Christie and legislative leaders broke up just before 9 p.m. with no resolution, ending the second day of a special...
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Talks between Christie and legislative leaders broke up just before 9 p.m. with no resolution, ending the second day of a special session that yielded little progress.
The day began with threats the governor would take the Legislature to court to force the full houses to meet and the specter he would conditionally veto a competing property tax bill lawmakers passed earlier this week.
By dusk, no court action had been taken, the veto had not been issued, and Christie and his staff had spent hours wrangling with Democratic leaders.
At one point shortly after 3 p.m., Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver (D-Essex) was summoned to the office of Christie’s chief of staff, Rich Bagger. Ninety minutes later, Christie could be seen huddling in his outer office with allies in the Assembly. After they left, two of the governor’s key negotiators returned to Christie’s office in silence.
Assembly and Senate committees kicked off the day with meetings to consider Christie’s proposal for a 2.5 percent cap on property tax hikes, setting a rough schedule of hearings that would last into September.
In the face of Christie’s order for the full Legislature to convene in Trenton, defiant Senate Democrats refused to call their full membership to the state capital to deal with what one called a "fake crisis with a fake deadline."
Assembly Democrats came to the capital, though they said they would not be returning today, despite the governor’s call for a special session. Oliver said she was waiting for the governor to make the next move.
"The mode we are on is we are on call," she said.
During a speech to the joint Legislature on Thursday, the governor insisted property tax reform must be enacted immediately and called on lawmakers to work through the July Fourth holiday to get it done. He offered a compromise by backing away from his original proposal that such reform had to be done through a constitutional amendment, saying he would accept a law instead.
Democrats have said they’re willing to consider the governor’s 2.5 percent cap on annual property tax increases. The sticking points remained which expenses local governments could exclude from the cap. The governor insists only debt payments, construction and already-approved raises for public workers should be allowed to push taxes up over the cap without voter approval.
Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester) said towns should get a break for rising costs he says are beyond their control, such as health care and pension payments.
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Paul Sarlo (D-Bergen), who accused Christie of "trying to create this fake crisis with a fake deadline," said there was nothing the Legislature could do today — or over the holiday weekend — that would affect property taxes immediately, because municipal and school budgets are already in place for 2010.
Assembly members met longer, calling in members of the Christie administration to testify about property taxes. Democrats pounced when two administration officials did not show up.
"You’re not going to solve a decades-long problem over a three-day holiday weekend, especially when some departments cannot even come in to answer our questions," said Assembly Budget Committee Chairman Louis Greenwald (D-Camden).
Republicans in both houses planned to return to the capital today.
"We’ll be here. He’s going to be here," Assembly Minority Leader Alex DeCroce (R-Morris) said as he left the governor’s office.
By Claire Heininger/Staff Writer and Josh Margolin/Staff Writer
By Lisa Fleisher and Josh Margolin
Matt Friedman contributed to this report.